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I was invited to go sailing with my good friend, the Intrepid adventurer Captain Ed over the weekend. We headed due south with no solid plans. Ended up overnighting in Broadstrand bay and tore back the next morning with the wind at our back.

Our Course (roughly)

Some pictures

Thanks for the great weekend Ed.

For a more elegant description of the trip, click here.

Ach mein Gott! This blog has been sadly neglected.

I've been meaning to post here with ages but that task of doing a good post seemed just too much to undertake. So here we are, i'm not too concerned about making the post interesting - I just want to get something fresh up here.

I stopped blogged about 6 weeks ago when I went to visit my sister for a few weeks in Boston. I went over for my my niece's graduation from junior high or whatever the yanks call primary school. In Ireland we make no big deal of leaving primary school. Over in the states, it appears to be a huge ordeal with Mass, speeches, graduation dinner and the graduation ceremony itself. But then again we make a huge deal of The Confirmation here in Ireland. .

Anyhow I enjoyed the graduation and it meant buckets to Kayleigh that I went over - the hug she gave me when I suprised her was easily worth the €600 round trip.

When the graduation was over, I spent the bones of the next 3 weeks working on our latest project at Digital Crew - Teamwork Project Manager. I worked night and day on this puppy, quite literally. I can picture me still there, baking hot, wearing just shorts, slumpted on my sisters couch with legs up on coffee table and laptop on my um .. lap.. feverishly tapping away. I bored my sister and niece endlessly with my prattling on about the masterpiece I was creating. Teamwork PM will be released to the world in a few weeks! There are just a few improvements we want to make first.

Occasionally, I got cabin fever and went for a jog around a beautiful lake in nearby Cogshall Park. I couldn't find a single pic of Cogshall on the net but I did find this video:



I wasn't there on holiday as such and had to get work done so this trip was calm enough. But every other night, my sister and I visited the local pub for games of pool. I think the yanks were dumbfounded with our crazy Irish pool rules - "What do you mean you get a second shot?!".

It's fascinating to see how the social scene in middle America works. It's nothing like the big cities such as New York that most tourists experience. Everybody knows everybody else at least to see. Everybody loves the irish accent and I got the usual mindnumbing rounds of "I'm Irish too... My Great-great-great..." followed by the typical epic immigration story. You just have to grin and bear these things.

New England is a gorgeous landscape of placid lakes dotting a landscape of endless tall trees. Apart from the graduation. the highlight of this trip, was the kayaking excursion we took down a local river... it was beautiful and good craic!

I'm planning on returning in january and spending 2/3 weeks learning to ski properly - so I don't have to roar "Get out of the way  - I can't stop" anymore.

Things I Learned in American (this time)

1. Massachusetts drivers are absolutely shockingly dismally painfully useless aggressive drivers. You have to be bloody careful.
2. CVS, one of the major pharmacys has trucks all over the States that drive around looking for broken down motorists to help for free! Apparantly my mothers car broke down at a dangerous junction last year and one of these trucks appeared. No way would the guy take money. Philanthropy is alive and well in America and I am very impressed.
3. On-demand TV is both a godsend and a demon. I half-watched endless movies on all night programming stints. Not to mention I watched every Law and Order, CSI Someplace and NSIC they would feed me. I rarely watch TV - It is the domain of the mindless, but when it's on-demand with no ads and any program or movie you want is only 12 quick taps of a remote away, it can't be helped.
4. Dunkin donuts are yummy - I love those jam-bon things. I wasn't in the states an hour before I was stuffing my fat face with chocolate covered, custard filled donuts.
   
5. No wonders Americans are fat. The REALLY tasty fattening food is the cheapest. MASSIVE bags pf crisps (or chips as they call 'em) are only 99c. I love those cheetos. I think I put on a stone.
6. No no, it was the hot pockets. They are * watering at mouth just now * sooo tasty.
7. Americans have lottery card vending machines in bars! Hmmm
   
8. In a nightclub, the way a guy approachs a girl seems to be to dance/grind behind her. If she grind back, your in. It's kinda strange. And Americans don't seem to play tonsil-hockey in public, even in a nightclub.
9. Karaoke is hugely popular. You get a lot of singers up due to the high confidence level.
10. Even average players own their own pool queues which they bring to the pub on a night out!
11. Everybody drinks bud light. Everybody!
12. While I was there, I was watching the news one morning (after another all-nighter) and was amused to see a spot 5 minutes away on tv swarmed in reporters and helicopters. A maintenance guy at a beautiful and prominent cemetary in Fitchburg was arrested for stealing a skull from a grave. He was usng the skull as an ashtray and an arm bone as a tobacco (or something) pipe. I shit you not!
13. American street signs are bizzarre. One of my sisters friends went into hysterics when I asked what SchoolXING on a sign was all about? And there was BikeXING. "What the fuck is that"? It's obvious in hindsight. SchoolXING is "School Crossing" and BikeXING is "Bike Crossing". Would those extra 5 letters kill ye?
14. Great name for those tattoos girls like to put on their lower back - "Tramp Stamps". Haha.
15. Pool parties and burgers go togther like paedophiles and candy. Americans know how to make burgers! Yum.
    
16. Everything (and I mean everything) has buckets of sugar in it. I got a Mr freeze (you know what I mean Irish people) when it was sweltering to chomp on. It had so much sugar i it that it was sickening. I couldn't get that satisfying chomp sensation and I almost didn't eat it.
17. In Ireland I shop for "Large (L)" clothes. In the states I shop for "Medium (M)" clothes. Hmmm.
    
18. I didn't know this beforehand and you may not know. Since November last, all ATM cards now work perfectly worldwide without the need for Cirrus or whatever on the card. Handy.
19. We went to the blue man group - actually I did blog about that - and they are awesome. If your in Boston - go go go go go! What entertainment. Laugh till you cry. Unless your a miserable old battleaxe like the lady behind me who wouldn't pass forward the toilet roll...

I've been visiting my sister in Boston for the last 2 weeks.

Earlier tonight, we went to the famous Blue Man Group in Boston. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, knowing only that it was meant to be equally bizarre and amazing.




And it was!

Wow, what a show. It was truly a show an event to remember. Highly recommended.

I went to London 2 weeks ago for a Christening and used the occasion to catch up with good buddies John and Donal (aka Pikie) on the Sunday. Being good lads we went to Church on Sunday.

But it wasn't your average sermon!

Church is one of London's best loved backpacker destinations. It's on every Sunday from 11am till 2pm. The atmosphere is electric. You purchase cans(!) which come in a plastic bag which you then tie to your belt. Not as scummy as it sounds in practice.

Comedy shows, strip shows (which I missed damn it), drinking games, competitions, great music and dancing. What more do you want on a Sunday at 11am?

MORE PHOTOS FROM CHURCH ON THE DAY WE WERE THERE! http://www.thechurch.co.uk/photos/october15th/index.htm

If you find yourself in London on a Sunday, you're under 30 and you're not a sad bastard then make sure you go to Church!

Afterwards, when we emerged into daylight(!), we were cleverly guided onto buses and taken to Camden Town, which is one of my favourite parts of London. There we proceeded to drink, chat and laugh the next few hours away. John got lucky

We got drunk. No make that very drunk. John decided, for some bizarre reason that we had to go to Cricklewood. WTF.

We all passed out on the tube. Woke up in North London. Just as the tube was pulling out of a station, John wakes up and bolts off the train just as the doors closed.

When myself and Donal caught up to him in a place called Burnt Oak we decied the best thing we 3 amigos (read pissheads) can do is get some food into us.

In Burnt Oak, which is truly the ass end of nowhere in London, we found a small traditional English establishment.

We elected for that staple of the English diet, the kebab.

And now we come to the reason for this posting, that being to embarrass John and Pikie and show the world what a pair of lightweights they really are:

Finishing time 6.30pm. What a sorry sight.

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An apt title I think - It heralds the start of my personal blog showing that I am free to post what I like.

So I'm in Boston, just had another great night out with my darling sister Beverley.

Earlier on tonight I put some good tunes (read: Linkin Park) on and hacked the code for www.cftopper.com to allow me to have this personal blog. I wanted a personal blog because I am slightly crazy, tapped in the head so to speak and much of what I want to post wouldn't suit my ColdFusion development blog. Now I want to make it clear to anybody who cares that this blog is purely a selfish effort. It might as well be a diary. I'm going to post anything and everything that matters anything to me in my life. If you don't like it don't subscribe. I'm not out to please anybody here.

I'm over in Boston; well in Fitchburg which is a 'city' about an hour from Boston visiting my sister for a few weeks. Only a few days left but I've had a blast. Been to six flags, Hampton, water country, New York and last night I even went rodeo riding...

Let me tell you the story:

So I was quite happy watching Law & Order: SVU (it rocks) when Jen, my sisters good buddy called and insisted we go downtown to some mechanical bull riding compo.

We got there and it was pretty empty. The bouncers of the club, Karma, were having goes on the bull to encourage people to get on. The mech bull was setup middle stage at the back of the open bar. Nobody was giving it a go.

Jen got brave and gave it a shot... 8 seconds. I thought, "fuck it" and had a shot. Not bad - 30 seconds. Some more patrons had a go, some we're very bad - 1 second, 5 seconds - tee hee. All going well. Good fun. Good atmosphere. The dj was a lot of fun - he had a few goes and was shocking.

Then some guy got 40 seconds - the new record. Not to be beaten I got back on the horse... well the bull. The fucker threw me about but I held on like a motherfucker. I did it cowboy style with one hand for a few seconds at the start and remember the DJ saying "whoooaa, we've got a cocky one".

The trick is to get a good grip below the first knot. I got a fantastic 60 seconds, something happened the timer - It went off the clock. I thought that was it: I am the rodeo king.

Feeling satisfied with myself and more than a little sore I sat back down, still grinning and the focus of everybody's attention. The DJ was bellowing - wow!

I think everybody was afraid to have a go after that for a while. Yeah I know I sound cocky but thats the truth - nobody got up for 10 minutes. Eventually some newbies came in and the DJ harassed them into having a go. All were utterly useless.

THEN...

Then came the cocky portorican guy; throwing shapes. He got on the bull and was doing well. I thought the controller was giving him an easy time of it when it came to the 50 seconds mark. I was getting worried. The controller started to throw him wildly about the place at 55 seconds and he hung on before being thrown nicely at 72 seconds. A new champion. Needless to say I was disgusted.

Now to add insult to injury, this guy was COCKY. I don't know how to describe this type of guy. Not quite gangster. All attitude. He pranced about - I'm the man. Home boy. Baggy jeans, would shoot you before talk to you type of mo-fo. He hung around the bull throwing attitude, 'advice' and comments to anybody who'd listen. I should mention to counteract your mental picture that he wore glasses.

I was livid but cool. I felt cheated: that the controller gave him an easy time of it. So I made up my mind there and then I'm going to beat this asshole if it kills me.

My arms were still aching from the last go. I decided to give them as much time as possible before the big one. About 30 minutes later the girls decided they want to go elsewhere. I had thought of little more than strategy for those 30 minutes but didn't feel quite ready.

Fuck it, few were taking up the challenge so I threw off the shoes and steeled myself for the task ahead. I jumped on that bull and gripped on with both hands below the bottom knot as hard as I could. That bull can kick! I kept thinking "I have to beat that asshole". That did the trick and got me through the swirl and jolts. My hands were killing me, the bull was spinning so fast, then wham, it would switch direction and jolt me forward. I hung on for all I was worth. I glimpsed the clock. 55 seconds. All I had to do was hold on for a little while longer. No no no... thrown at 100 miles an hour. I was happy. Surely. Turning to the timer, I was certain...

Can you believe it - 71 seconds! :( 1 second under the mo-fo. After all my hard work. I was wrecked. He was still the champion. Everybody, well the few people in the place were cheering - I was happy yet disappointed. I probably haven't described the very well but it was all good fun.

The girls wanted to go. They went for a cigarette outside while I finished my Bud. Some other guy got on. He got 9 seconds. I was thinking "no way". I put down my drink and made my way back bull-ward.

Again I gripped the rope with all my might - two hands below the first knot. I understood that what was it's all about. It doesn't matter how much your are thrown as long as you don't leave go and keep under that first knot. I nodded at the controller and it started. Immediately I felt I was screwed, something wasn't quite right.

I was so determined.  Again I was thinking over and over - "Beat that cocky prick". It wasn't too bad until the 50 second mark - I caught a glimpse of the timer during a tiny respite. I knew, just 20 seconds more. I knew this was the hard part. This was the part when I had to grip with all my might. Just then, the deadly swirls that get everybody began; my hands strained. Then the other way... wow, nobody can take this. I could hear the crowd (well few people that were there) roaring"Yeaah!"... and was encouraged. Another tiny respite while the bull changed direction allowed me to quickly redo my grip.

It was really like the controller was using every bit of power in the bull to throw me. I just kept thinking, no way, no way, no way, no way is he beating me.

And WHAM - I went flying! hahahaha - I was pad out on the air cushion laughing madly. I knew I had to had it. Surely. Surely this time. I got up and Jen and my sister were grinning and smiling at the edge. I looked.

91 seconds!!!! Yeeeehaaaaaa. Ride 'em cowboy.

We moved on, confident that I was the nights champion. I'm just sorry that I won't be there for the cash competition next Thursday. Some guy told me I should enter but Ireland beckons.